Great Island Fiddlers

Cobh was treated to an energetic musical evening, which combined the talents of young locals and from a group of musicians from Newfoundland.

The Celtic Fiddlers, an award-winning group of 18 young musicians from Newfoundland, specialising in traditional music from Newfoundland and Ireland, combined forces with Cobh's own Junior Traditional and Traditional Fiddle groups from the County Cork School of Music, under the direction of Jenny Ui Loinsigh and Ciaran Deloughry.

The capacity crowd at the Sirius Arts Centre was captivated with the performance and the young musicians discovered links they never imagined, both musically and culturally.

The evening began with performances by the Junior Traditional Group directed by Jenny Ui Loinsigh, followed by the Traditional Fiddle Group guided by Ciaran Deloughry. Both sets provided a warm welcome to the Newfoundland players. Special gusets of the evening, the Celtic Fiddlers, under the direction of their long-time teacher, Ms Korona Brophy, illustrated their own style of traditional playing which was similar yet different. The fiddlers invited the Traditional Fiddle Group on to stage the stage at the end of their set and a great session followed. The enthusiasm of the young people as they discovered tunes they both knew, but slightly differently powerfully illustrated how music and tradition connect them.

By the end of the night there was talk of a trip by the Cobh group to Newfoundland for St. Patrick's Day next year to strengthen these newly discovered connections. Planning has already begun and no doubt soon you will be hearing about fundraising efforts by the group to make this dream trip into a reality.

It was a night that will not be forgotten soon.

Kathleen Geary, Evening Echo, Wednesday, July 16, 2003.





........Music for the evening was provided by a wonderful group of fiddle players from Cobh, The Great Island Fiddlers................

Mary Hartnett, Administrator, Cork International Choral Festival, February 3, 2004

WE LEND OUR DANCES, WE BORROW SOME OF THEIRS

We were invited to do a workshop at the St. John's Folk Arts Festival, St. John's, Newfoundland. It's not a cheap destination from west Cork, as we had to travel via London Heathrow. Our previous trips to this part of Canada had always been in October, but this time it was to be August. The weather was just great, 31 degrees C all day long. The festival, which ran over three days, included instrument, dance and song workshops. We joined a French Canadian dance workshop; it was for a Lancer Set, not unlike our own Clare Lancers.
We then did our workshop, and a great surprise to us was that we were joined by a dozen fiddle players from Cobh, who were visiting Newfoundland at the time. What a bonus! This year, the festival had a French dimension to it, although the music had a very Irish slant. The music and dancing could be described as a little bit of French, Irish and Scots. Local influences have been assimilated into their own style. We went with an open mind, which was filled with hospitality and friendship. We will return!

Bert and Annie Moran, Schull, Co. Cork, The Set Dancing News, December/ January 05